The one man black ambient metal project that is Garden of Grief have just released their 4th album entitled Denied Sanctuary X and from top to toe it is jammed full of excellent musicianship, especially for a black metal project. This isn’t just about making a racket, and worshipping the dark forces, for Boronian Sturmfells it’s about creating excellent music, which all fans of extreme metal can relate to and enjoy. Sure, it may not be as aggressive and violent as its forefathers such as the kind of black metal we hear from the likes of Burzum, Emperor and Behemoth, but unlike these bands, Garden of Grief really shows a more emotional side to the music.

Denied Sanctuary X just doesn’t incorporate the black metal side he music into it. There are also elements of doom metal and quite ambient features present throughout the album. The opening track ‘Sanctuary Denied Forever’ really stands out from the other songs on the album because you could say it is rather happy compared to tracks like ‘Volunteer...... For Euthanasia’. Never the less if Garden of Grief had decided to have not used this track and decided just to make a no bull shit black metal record. A lot of the musicianship and skill would have been lost; as Boronian’s piano playing is magnificent for the entire five minutes of that track.

The Vocals show a traditional take on black metal music, sounding like a devilish tortured soul being dragged into a lake of burning fire. It sets a really haunting and depressive atmosphere to the song; giving that extra push to make it all the more awesome. Boronian has done a great job at resurrecting and putting a fresh set of paint onto this style of old Nordic black metal, and should be proud of releasing one of the best emerging black metal albums you will hear in the 21st century.

Unfortunately Garden of Grief do kind of loose the listeners attention in the 20 minute long ‘The Horizon Of My Dreams’ As good as the musicianship is throughout, they fail to pull off development and idea changes throughout the song, making it sound monotonous and dull in places, but that’s only one problem with the album, and with time Garden of Grief will progress and progress until they finally produce a perfect record.

Denied Sanctuary X is 7 tracks of pure depressive black metal with a slight hint of ambient thrown in for good measure. The diversity of Mr. Sturmfell on this album is something to take into consideration for a black metal musician and this will be his uprising, where other black metal bands will be trying to produce music like this, but will be failing. Congratulations, the Lords of Chaos are very pleased!

Review: Matt Seddon

Track Listing

Sanctuary Denied Forever
Into the Vale of Dreams
The Nebulous Entity of Love
Reaching for the Stars
The Horizon of Dreams
Volunteer..... For Euthanasia
The Final Ascension